A HERITAGE museum is reaching out to the rugby league community in Bradford in its search for memorabilia from one of the most famous tours in history.

Heritage Quay, based at the University of Huddersfield, will be holding an exhibition to celebrate the 70th anniversary of The Indomitables.

The Indomitables was the name given to the all-conquering Great Britain team that travelled to Australia and New Zealand in 1946. It was led by Rugby League Hall of Famer Gus Risman and featured six players from Bradford Northern - Trevor Foster, Ernest Ward, Eric Batten, Willie Davies, Frank Whitcombe, and Jack Kitching.

The tour earned its name from the Royal Navy warship the players travelled on, which transported them 10,000 miles in a month long journey to the other side of the world, travelling down the Suez Canal and stopping off in Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt’s Port Said, Aden in what is now Yemen, and Colombo in Sri Lanka, before landing in Fremantle, Western Australia, still more than 2,000 miles from their final destination of Sydney.

The tour made history as it was the first time a travelling side had gone unbeaten in a series against Australia, a record which still stands today.

Now, the Heritage Quay is looking to mark this historic tour by bringing together memorabilia in a new exhibition and is appealing to family members of Bradford’s six players - or anyone in the district who has memorabilia from the tour that they would be willing to share with the museum.

The engagement officer at Heritage Quay, Dave Smith, has been working with Simon Foster, the son of Trevor Foster, to pull the exhibit together.

“Thanks to research so far, at least 12 of the players’ jerseys are lined up for display - from a total of 26 - as well as caps, pennants, photographs and diaries," Mr Smith said.

“The rightly celebrated Great Britain touring side of 1946 remains the most successful to ever go down under and to celebrate the 70th anniversary of their achievements we have an event on July 2 where we are going to tell the story of the trip from beginning to end.

“We have some got some fascinating documents from the Rugby Football League, and some items from a couple of player collections, but it’s not enough!

“We have two special aims for the event that go above our usual rugby league events, to invite all the families of the players on the tour, and to track down all the shirts worn by the players; we have one from Leeds’ Dai Jenkins that you can still see the mud on.”

Contact Mr Smith at d.smith@hud.ac.uk or call 01484 473168.